In the Clearing

by J. P. Pomare

  Olivia helped me work through that difficult time, I even let her get close enough to see glimpses of the real me. I’m trying to be honest with her so she can help me come to terms with what I am. Now we tend to speak about my relationship with my mother and untangle the yarn ball of neurosis I carry in my head.

  Today Olivia sits me down and smiles that close-lipped smile that fans the skin about her eyes.

  ‘So, what has been happening lately, Freya?’ she begins.

  Soft Balinese chimes wind through the speakers. Olivia, who sits across from me in her wingback chair, reaches forwards to the coffee table for the pot of chamomile tea, pouring us each a cup.

  ‘I’ve decided I’m going to try to paint again.’

  ‘That’s a great idea.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve been exercising a lot. Walking every day. Some swimming.’ I pick up my cup and take a sip, scalding my tongue.

  ‘Well, it sounds like you have some good healthy habits at the moment. I hope you’re not exercising too much?’

  ‘No. Not too much. I still give myself enough space and time to cook and think.’

  She gives me a warm smile. ‘Good, good.’

  ‘But I saw something on the news …’ She is nodding as I speak. ‘A girl … a girl has been taken. Well, she’s missing.’

  Olivia raises her eyebrows over her glasses, so her forehead corrugates. There’s a pause in the music as the track ends and for the first time I notice the purr of the air-conditioning. ‘I can see how that could be …’ she squints as if she might read the word she is searching for in the distance ‘… significant. How did you feel on hearing about that?’

  I think for a moment. ‘I was afraid, I suppose.’

  ‘Afraid for your son?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, my eyes gliding away towards the window. ‘And afraid of Wayne.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Olivia says. ‘Well, I guess we’ve got a bit to work through, huh?’

  ‘I know bad things happen to people. But I’ve had my share of bad things already. I don’t want to be on the lookout all my life, always scared, always preparing for something to happen. What if they come for Billy?’

  ‘Who exactly do you mean?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Fear is a normal reaction, Freya – especially given your history. Do you feel that you do enough as a mother for Billy?’

  ‘Yes. Of course, I do,’ I say, keeping my voice neutral.

  ‘You went through a lot. Sometimes very good, very kind people make mistakes and sometimes these mistakes hurt others. That doesn’t mean something bad is going to happen to you.’

  I often wonder if she thinks I deliberately hurt Aspen. I don’t push back on the point. ‘I know. The last few days I’ve had this feeling, though. I have a sense that something is going to happen. I feel like someone is watching me.’

  ‘Do you think part of this is about Henrik Masters?’

  If I am honest, the answer is yes. I’ve been waiting almost twenty years for him to come out, knowing it was always going to happen.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What else is happening around you when you get this feeling?’

  ‘I’m alone, or with Rocky.’

  ‘Right. So maybe it’s born out of fear of the unknown? Of being away from Billy?’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s not just that. I noticed a van parked near my house. Just up the road. A van, Olivia.’ I let my eyes settle on her face.

  ‘A van,’ she repeats.

  ‘And there was a strange couple hanging out by the river on my property.’

  ‘Do you feel as if things you can normally count on and control have changed? For instance, having full privacy and isolation at home?’

  I lean back and suck my teeth. It’s more than that. I have always been controlling – I like control, I need control – but it is so much more.

  ‘I worry about bushfires. What if they accidentally start a fire?’

  Olivia gives a knowing nod, makes a thoughtful noise at the back of her throat.

  This is not the real fear, we have the fire bunker and a solid escape plan. I can’t say what I am truly afraid of. My eyes roam the carpet chequered with squares of light passing through the window.

  ‘Perhaps it would be good to have a change of scene. Have you considered a short holiday?’ Olivia shuffles in her seat, adjusting her legs, one knee over the other.

  ‘I’m thinking about getting a panic button installed.’

  ‘That could help. But let’s focus on the exact nature of the dangers you are perceiving and why they stimulate this acute threat response.’

  I sigh, sinking through the couch, the floor, into the hot dark soil. ‘It’s Henrik. I’m at home thinking about Henrik. And now Wayne is back.’

  ‘Oh,’ Olivia says. She touches her glasses. ‘Right.’

  I can see her processing this, that sharp little mind springing into action now that she is faced with a real problem with potentially serious consequences. ‘Where?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where did you see Wayne?’

  ‘At the grocer. I heard him.’

  ‘You heard him? You didn’t see him?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  She looks sceptical.

  ‘I know his voice,’ I insist.

  ‘Perhaps you still blame him for the loss of Aspen – which is a completely natural feeling to have. If you had a friend in the position you are in, what would your advice be to them?’

  I think about it. It’s a good question, a way to rationalise the situation with an alternative perspective.

  Then I understand what I would say. ‘I would tell them to run.’

  — Amy’s journal —

  Three facts about my mother:

  1. She is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

  2. She will do anything to protect her family.

  3. She believes education and discipline are the most necessary virtues when preparing for the new age.

  That’s what our six school days of the week are designed around: education and discipline.

  This is what normally happens:

  6.00: Wash, clean teeth, make beds.

  6.25: Put tracksuits on.

  6.30: Hatha yoga and meditation.

  7.30: Listen to one of Adrienne’s sermons.

  7.45: Chanting, then meditation.

  8.00: Sprints to the front gate and back (short bursts of exercise are healthier than endurance exercise).

  8.15: Breakfast (usually a piece of fruit or a single slice of bread).

  8.35: Get changed again, this time into our regular clothes. (If outsiders are coming to the Clearing, we wear our best clothes: matching dresses for us girls and matching shirts and pants for the boys.)

  8.40: Set up our classroom at the back of the Great Hall.

  8.55: First bell, school begins.

  10.45: Recess.

  11.00: Schoolwork.

  12.15: Exercise. (Badminton, usually, or foot races. Occasionally we are instructed on self-defence with rubber knives or rubber bats. Or sometimes Adam hangs wallaby carcasses up for us to practise with real knives.)

  12.30: Lunch.

  1.00: Schoolwork.

  2.30: Recess.

  2.45: Schoolwork.

  4.00: Pack up classroom, tidy Great Hall for dinner, sweep bedrooms, clean showers and bathroom.

  5.00: Meditation. (Each day a different child will meditate alone in the blue room – a small alcove off the Great Hall, where the walls are painted sky blue and a single image of Adrienne’s face hangs to the west. We are not allowed to close our eyes but must stare at Adrienne’s face.)

  5.15: The servers for the day begin cooking dinner while the rest of us do chores such as chopping wood, collecting eggs from the chickens or working in the vegetable garden.

  6.00: Dinner. Portions are determined according to our weight. Younger children receive much smaller meals than us teenagers.

  6.30: Clean teeth, occasionally listen to a sermon fro
m Adrienne.

  AMY

  THIS MORNING ADAM was away and the minders were in charge. We complete our morning meditations and exercise. We unstack the desks and line them up before beginning school. Asha is there, weeping silently as Jonathan hands out our reading for the day. The books are ancient, the corners tattered and torn with threads showing through the hard covers.

  I open the first page and begin reading the dense text. We are going to be tested on comprehension; I need to understand and annotate the book. I raise my hand.

  ‘Yes, Amy?’

  ‘Could I have my notebook, please?’

  ‘Certainly. Would anyone else like their notebook?’ Jonathan asks. Most of my brothers and sisters raise their hands. He goes through our individual steel drawers one by one, making his way to the end. My drawer is last. I see him rifle through it for my notebook. I have a feeling inside, I know something bad is about to happen. The notebooks he is carrying in one arm slip, clattering to the floor. Everyone looks up to see Jonathan’s hand fly to his mouth. He turns to stare at me, his eyes wide, as he draws out a piece of paper. My chest feels heavy as though wrapped tightly in worry. What have I done?

  ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘Come with me.’

  I stand up and he leads me through the Great Hall to the top of the steps outside. He closes the door behind us. Then stops and turns back to me. My fears are confirmed when I see what is in his hand. The sketch of Jermaine Boethe.

  ‘When did you draw this?’

  I can’t bear to look at it. I’m so scared they’re going to punish me that I can’t speak. I can only see the image in my mind of water sloshing in the Cooler. I keep my eyes down and shake my head.

  He makes a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Wait here,’ he says. I hear the rhythmic whoosh of his pants as he strides off towards the minders’ quarters, still clutching my drawing in his fist.

  It’s hard to know what the teachers think and how they are going to behave. Our music teacher, Ian, once sat for over an hour listening to me playing Chopin’s Nocturne in F minor, Opus 55. Adrienne wants me to develop as a pianist. Each time I dropped a note, I felt the hard edge of a ruler crack against my knuckles. After the first few times through I was able to play it without the music in front of me, and soon I could get through it without dropping a note. Music can be fun. Playing with all my brothers and sisters, singing together in harmony. Sometimes Ian and Adam play together, taking the guitars and harmonicas. The memory distracts me only for a moment. When I finally look up, Jonathan has reached the minders’ quarters. Tamsin and Indigo are sitting out the front on the grass. The teacher raises his fist, holding the sketch out before them. The minders look over at me then back at the picture. My cheeks glow. I brace myself but for what I don’t know.

  FREYA

  Three days to go

  BACK IN THE car, as I head out of town towards Mum’s place, I call Corazzo. He doesn’t pick up, so I try again. Sometimes I feel homesick for a place and a time I never really had, and that’s when I turn to Corazzo. He is also just a good friend to have. He still has contacts in the police from before he retired. He was there for me first with Henrik, then after Wayne. He fought for me when everyone blamed me for what happened to Aspen. He is good – as good as a man like him can be. He’s objective and honest. He will be the first to help you move to a new house, and he’ll be the first to visit you in hospital. He knows most of my secrets except the one that only Mum and I share.

  ‘G’day, Freya.’

  ‘You weren’t answering a moment ago.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ve been in the garden. This dry weather has done a real number on my veggies.’

  ‘You need a new hobby,’ I say. ‘Or a wife.’

  I hear him laugh down the line. ‘I used to have one of those, didn’t end well as you may recall. But if you know anyone looking for a grumpy old husband, let me know.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled.’

  ‘So what can I do you for?’

  ‘I just wanted to chat.’

  ‘Since when have you ever wanted to chat? This wouldn’t happen to be about Henrik?’

  ‘Henrik, yes,’ I say. ‘And something else. There’s a van parked down the road from me. It’s been there a while. I’m a bit suspicious.’

  ‘Suspicious? That doesn’t sound like you.’

  ‘Ha-ha,’ I deadpan. ‘If I get you the plates, is there any way you can check them out?’

  ‘I can organise that for you, sure.’

  ‘I’ll text you.’

  ‘No worries. Come out and see me soon, okay?’

  I hang up and turn the radio on. I think about what Olivia said about taking a holiday. A holiday is the last thing on my mind, but it might be a good idea to disappear for a while, just until Wayne clears out. The advice to my imaginary friend was run but I know it’s not as simple as that. We could stay with Mum if she’s got room. Or maybe not. Me and Billy going incognito in a retirement village – not my best idea. Perhaps we could head up to Jonas’s place while he’s away. He owns fifty barren acres up in a dustbowl near the border. He’s going off the grid, he told me. Solar panels, a dam (dry at the moment), a vegetable garden the size of the CBD. Jonas is the type to rub sage under his arms instead of deodorant, and he’s fashioned a brazier out of an old washing machine drum. I get the feeling he’s setting himself up to be some kind of survivalist. On second thought, heading all the way up to Jonas’s probably isn’t a good idea either. I don’t want to leave civilisation behind altogether.

  It takes over an hour to drive out to Mum’s from Tullawarra. She’s been in the home for eight months. For two decades before that she lived in a five-bedroom house by herself, and now she’s in a two-bedroom unit with a nursing station nearby and twice daily visits from a carer. As her condition worsens, she will have to be moved again into full-time care. Jonas is resisting the idea, he thinks she’s doing fine, but it’s inevitable. In the last few months she has deteriorated rapidly. It’s a question of weeks now; Jonas will just have to accept it.

  I roll up into the hills. The road’s edge is lined with native brush, bleached by the harsh dry summer. I turn off down a country road, and soon I’m driving through a dusty township. A milk bar, a fish-and-chip shop, an old-timey service station. I pull the Disco in. I duck down to pull the lever to open the gas flap, and when I look up again my heart leaps and lodges in my throat. An old man with grease-stained cheeks and blue overalls is bending to look in through my passenger window. Jesus Christ, I think, It’s like The Hills Have Eyes out here. ‘Hi,’ I say, lowering the window.

  ‘Ninety-one?’ he says.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What petrol you want? Will ninety-one do you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Fill it up, please.’

  ‘Want me to check your oil?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Pop the bonnet.’

  I do, then head inside to pay. There’s a woman behind the counter wearing a large dress that might have once been a tablecloth. She’s sitting on a stool watching a YouTube video on an old desktop computer.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Just the fuel.’

  She pauses the video and turns to me. ‘He’s still pumping.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Where you heading?’

  ‘Eucalyptus Acres.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she says, studying my face for a moment. I glance away and find myself looking at the paper on the counter, the front-page story about the missing girl.

  ‘You got a mum or dad out there?’

  ‘Mum,’ I say.

  The bell tinkles as the door opens and the man enters.

  ‘Oil’s good, topped your water up too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  I pay on my card and quickly walk back to the Disco. As I’m driving away, I see the man standing out on the forecourt watching me, one hand cupped over his eyes.

  Soon the sign appears on the left, lichen-chewed but the words still legible: Eucalyptus Acres. I t
urn between the pale trees and drive along the gravel track. The reception building looks deserted, but a nurse walking between the units raises her hand at me as I pass. I wonder if Mum remembers that Henrik is coming out. I wonder if she remembers what Henrik did.

  I park near reception, then walk past other units, all detached, all brick walls and steel roofs with their own tiny yards and parking spots. I walk all the way to Mum’s unit hidden at the edge of the village and knock on her door, she doesn’t answer. I knock again, louder, then I hear her call from inside.

  ‘It’s open,’ she calls in her prim voice.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, stepping into the room. ‘It’s me.’

  She’s in a chair at the dining table and swivels her head towards me. ‘Oh, hello. I didn’t know you were coming today.’

  I look around the sitting room. It opens into the kitchen where the dining table is. Reminders are scrawled on a whiteboard on her fridge. I see her art on the walls; even here she manages to show off her extraordinary privilege. Her jewellery is laid out on a cabinet, her crystal on display. Nurses don’t make a lot of money. It’s probably not a good idea to leave this stuff lying around.

  She has that vague look in her eyes.

  ‘I brought you croissants,’ I tell her, raising the paper bag. For years I’ve done this dance, treating her tenderly, showing her the love a daughter is supposed to.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, looking uncertain. ‘Croissants. Thank you. Is your brother here with you?’

  ‘No, Mum. He’s away at the moment. He’s overseas.’

  ‘Overseas? I thought he was coming today.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.’ I sit down across from her at the table. ‘Do you want it heated up?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The croissant?’

  ‘Oh, um, yes. Just warm, please.’

  ‘Here,’ I say, opening Facebook and handing her my phone. ‘Look at Jonas’s travel photos.’